


Magic Madness Heaven Sin

by Paper0wl



Series: Rod and Shield [20]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Existential Questions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:17:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5965315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper0wl/pseuds/Paper0wl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heaven has a kill order out on the Morningstar Abomination. She's missing, but there are angels supporting her. Either his superiors are misinformed or the Morningstar Abomination will lead the second divide of Heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Madness Heaven Sin

Humans were prone to much profanity and violence.

 "What the fuck is Zarya?! I refuse to be shot again when I don't even know what the bloody fuck you're talking about!"

 "You do know her. Yours is the whiny voice from the phone. Gde Zarya?"

 "Oh. That's Russian. Bela, that's . . . Dawn? You're looking for Dawn Morrow? How do you know her?"

 Like her father before her, the Morningstar Abomination went about corrupting everything she touched. This witch lingering on a crossroads contract. This fractured man with a disturbingly scarred soul. This woman bound to life by the Morningstar's witch.

 Despite the threats and spoken blasphemies and brandished weapons, none harmed each other. Yet. 

 They just talked and talked about the Morning Abomination and how the scarred man and the witch desired to find her and neither knew where she was.

 Unfortunate. 

 Castiel thought the fractured and scarred man might lead him to the Abomination. It was his duty to cleanse the Earth of Lucifer's spawn. The Abomination had the potential to lead the garrison to the First Demon who persisted in attempting to raise the Fallen One. And if the Abomination could not, then she would still be killed. After Castiel questioned her about what he'd seen in the fractured man's mind: mentions of Joshua and Gabriel, two neither the fractured man nor the Abomination should have personal knowledge of.

 What did the Abomination know about the Gardener? What did she know about the missing Archangel presumed dead? Joshua never left his garden at the center of Heaven, a place the Abomination would find no welcome and could not enter without detection besides. Castiel supposed there was a minute possibility she had some involvement in Gabriel's disappearance, but not even the Abomination would be a match for Heaven's most terrifying weapons.

 He briefly considered looking through the witch's mind as he had done the scarred man's when, after another bout of profanity and threatened violence, the scarred man spoke of Gabriel to the witch. But the scarred man reacted faster than most humans and carried the blades of the two of his brothers the Abomination had slain before disappearing. Such an act carried too much risk to be a viable option when other options remained available, however slow the alternatives may be. Despite the efforts of the First Demon, the Seals remained in place and as yet there was no need for rash action.

 "You're not as twitchy as Selvig, but I don't think you're all here either," the witch said as a prelude to agreeing to take the fractured man to Gabriel as the Abomination had suggested.

 It was unlikely to be a different Gabriel as the Abomination had referred to him as "uncle," but how did an archangel stand to be called such by a walking blasphemy? How did she know where to find an archangel long gone from Heaven?

 Had he not been invisible and intangible as he followed the fractured man as he had for several months, Castiel's vessel would be frowning.

 Surely the Abomination had not fallen so far as to attempt to imprison an archangel?

 ***

 Castiel drew away from the scarred man when he noticed the wards. Strong as they were he had not noticed them sooner. The wards were well hidden and defended against nearly everything although the sigils were unusually specific. There were a number of non-human beings granted access to the domicile within, but aside from unfamiliar sigils designating their names being written into the wards, Castiel could find no common factor between them. 

 It seemed the Abomination endeavored to corrupt some fraction of Purgatory-bound souls as well.

 Intangible or not, Castiel frowned at the modifiers he found on the sigils barring Heaven's soldiers from crossing the threshold. He almost thought there was something about the naming sigils that was  _not_  unfamiliar. But there was no reason he could conceive for the Abomination to allow  _any_  angelic being to freely cross the bounds of a stronghold of her allies, so perhaps he read the wards wrong. It was difficult to separate the layered sigils after all. The wards confused him. 

 Although Castiel suspected he would trigger the wards if he attempted to approach, he could not determine what the response would be. He kept his distance and observed.

 The wards did not block his vessel’s enhanced physical senses although the requisite distance and physical obstructions made such observations more arduous than he was used to.

 From what he could determine, however, there was in fact another angel present. Much stronger than Castiel; stronger even than his superiors. The other inhabitants called him "Gabriel" and, confusing as such a presence was, Castiel was inclined to believe this was the archangel Gabriel.

 Gabriel was not imprisoned. The Messenger flew to and from the house with ease and a frequency that matched no schedule Castiel was able to determine. The inhabitants of the house, from what he could determine through his observations, included several humans, an Asgardian, and one of the denizens of Purgatory. 

 An odd choice.

 Closer inspection revealed one of the humans was in fact a prophet. Prophets were guarded by archangels. But how could Gabriel be assigned as guardian without returning to Heaven? Without Heaven  _knowing_  he had returned?

 Castiel did not attempt to follow Gabriel when he flew away. It was unlikely he could do so undetected. Even if he did, he may not be able to find the house again. He had found that if he moved out of sight of the house, he became . . . distracted and had a difficult time refocusing his attention. 

 He did not know how such an effect was achieved, but it was undoubtedly one of the reason the wards were so extensive.

 Many of the places the fractured man had stopped were similarly warded. It made following him and the witch frustrating. It also meant he had yet to alert his superiors because with no particular urgency it was a foolish thing to lose his only potential lead to the Abomination. There would be time later to inform his superiors of the Abomination's witch or the discovery of Gabriel and his . . . unusual habits. 

 The archangel often engaged in frivolous expenditures of power that appeared to serve no purpose other than irritate his co-habitants. 

 With Gabriel's power saturating every corner of the property within the wards, Castiel did not notice the other angel until she walked out with the arm of the noisy human female around her.

 "Anael?"

 "Huh?" the human asked, turning her head towards the vocal blurt he failed to mask. 

 His former superior froze momentarily before dragging the human female back over the ward line. "Gabriel!"

 "I  _thought_  someone was nosing at the wards," the archangel announced landing beside the pair.

 "And you didn't mention this?" Anael exclaimed.

 "Either they'd go away or show themselves. Obviously he went with door number two."

 "You said angels wouldn't be able to find me!"

 "If he's been hanging around for as long as he has and is  _still_  surprised to see you, it's a fair bet you're not the one he here for. Who are you here for, Castiel?" Gabriel asked abruptly.

 "I am looking for the Morningstar Abomination."

 Gabriel winced. "Yeah, no, that's not gonna fly."

 "Fly where?"

 "I forgot how clueless my brothers could be. But if I didn't let Raphael kill her, I'm certainly not gonna let you, capiche? Besides," he continued without giving Castiel a chance to respond, "Dad likes her."

 "Our Father? Likes the Morningstar Abomination? There are standing orders to kill her," Castiel replied in confused rebuttal.

 Gabriel shook his head. "Okay, first? Stop calling her an abomination. Second? Come inside and I'll explain. It's a long story."

 ***

 "Cas. It's good to see you. Although from the look on your face, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you're still choking on the brave new world we've found ourselves."

 "Balthazar."

 "Present and accounted for," the other angel said raising a tumbler of amber liquid.

 "I grieved your death," Castiel said blankly. Much of the garrison had been mobilized to locate the First Demon and the Abom – Lucifer's daughter. Lilith left a trail but none had found her yet. Morningstar occasionally surfaced, but no angel sent after her returned, including Balthazar.

 "Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry about that, you know. I wanted them to think, you know, so . . . they wouldn't come looking for me."

 "Why are you doing this?" he asked, not understanding . . . much of what was happening actually.

 "I have no particular interest in dying," his (former?) friend retorted. "You may have noticed that all this time and the only angels Morningstar the Second has dropped are the ones who try to drop  _her_. Yeah, I'm not suicidal enough to try that myself."

 "She is an Abomination," Castiel insisted weakly.

 "And yet she has an archangel in her corner willing to swear to her goodness and wholesomeness and all that jazz," Balthazar pointed out. "Besides, if Gabriel is to be believed, Dad left us to choose our own way. Utter and complete freedom. You'd never know that from listening to the old sticks in the mud upstairs. We can do  _anything_. And I, for one, am not about to let anyone kick off Apocalypse Now until I've tried everything."

 "You're choosing the – Morningstar over Heaven?"

 Balthazar shook his head. "I prefer to think of it as . . . choosing the status quo over all the mess of the Apocalypse. Everything as it is now. And if she turns out like her father – well, there'll be time later to reevaluate."

 Castiel puzzled over his words a moment before nodding. "I shall wait and see."

 "That's the spirit, Cas!" Balthazar said enthusiastically. "Here."

 He accepted the glass beverage conveyance with a frown.

 "Cheers," the other angel said, raising his own glass. "You're supposed to clink glasses – like this." Balthazar brought his glass to meet Castiel's with a clinking chime. "Now drink."

 Castiel drank. He didn't see the purpose or significance of the action.

 Balthazar sighed. "You'll learn."

 


End file.
